East African Safari

We slept well and quite late. On walking out of the front door we found Captain Bubu waiting for us. The tide was out and we had to walk across the sand and board the Dhow. No problem for John wearing shorts but a bit difficult for me in a skirt. As the tide was out we had to take a longer route to Manda Island. We began with the sail hoisted and to balance the dhow the mate had to sit on a plank over the water. Manda Island is like paradise, white sand stretching off into the distance with low growing vegetation. On the beach there are woven hammocks suspended with the roof covered with coconut fronds. Further along a bar made from an old boat and on the black-board a list of exotic cocktails, but there were no people to take advantage of the amenities. We had a couple of swims and a walk met a young man who tried to sell us illegally some shells. He didn’t want to understand when we told him we had no money we were wearing bathing gear!!
At noon we boarded the dhow and returned to Lamu Island. We could see children swimming quite far out from the shore however as it was low tide, quite safe. When we arrived back the mate gallantly carried me off the boat to dry land.

At lunch the receptionist, Maureen asked us if we could be out of our room next morning by 10.00am because they were going to have an important visitor and all his retinue, it wasn’t certain but a maybe to which agreed of course. There was a bit of a stir afternoon when the hotel boat arrived bearing an Italian father and his two daughters. One was dressed becomingly the other wearing only a bikini top and short shorts. I said to John that something would be said, because the girl was upsetting the sensibilities of the Muslim population. The guide arrived to take them out on the town tour and Maureen said to him, “Go to the shops and for goodness sake, get that girl covered up”.

Later in the afternoon we decided to go and visit Swahili House. It is a house as would have been lived in by a family a century or more ago. Apart from the marital bed there were two others on display, one a birthing bed with an open weave base, after the delivery of the baby, to stop the bleeding a charcoal fire would be lit beneath the bed for the mother to sit over. Ingenious! The other bed was for laying out the dead. The bath was the same as the one we saw at Gedi, it was also filled from outside, there is always residue water and the bottom with fish swimming in it, these eat the mosquito larvae. Upstairs the kitchen which was very basic, the cooking done over a fire set in a stone base with the few utensils required.

Lamu is famous for the cats which live feral and breed there. They strongly resemble the ancient Egyptian cats of the Pharaohs with small heads and long tails. It is believed that they were originally brought from Oman a few centuries ago. They live in ‘prides’, the fishermen and the inhabitants give them food but they belong to no one. Unfortunately some of them are mistreated and there are two living at the Lamu Palace Hotel, one called Mrs. Juma who had boiling water thrown over her, she is recovering, she and her friend have settled into hotel life very nicely with all the comforts and food they desire.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 12th, 2003 at 2:03 pm and is filed under East Africa. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.